


Small Weird Love

by haemodye



Series: Magic Made Them Do It [2]
Category: Marvel 616, Runaways (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Anatomy, Bottom Steve, Bottom Steve Rogers, Complete, Consentacles, Dirty Talk, Dom Tony Stark, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Magic, Multiple Orgasms, OctoTony, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Tony Stark, Porn with Feelings, Protective Steve Rogers, Relationship Discussions, Scientific Dirty Talk, Service Top, Stand Alone, Steve didn't have that kink before this but he's definitely gonna have it after, Stony Bingo, Sweet Steve, Sweet Steve Rogers, Switching, Tentacles, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Top Tony Stark, Topping from the Bottom, Weird Biology, that should be a tag already what, this is the dirtiest thing i've written probably lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haemodye/pseuds/haemodye
Summary: When a magical mishap results in Tony swapping his legs for tentacles, he's absolutely mortified. How is he supposed to face Steve? Steve can't possibly want him like this. Right? Right...
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Magic Made Them Do It [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048390
Comments: 48
Kudos: 196
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo





	1. teuthic hagiography

**Author's Note:**

> So I promised myself I wouldn't write/post any new shit until I finished any of my quite imperative WIPs or replied to the many unanswered comments I have in my inbox but I've had a really fucking bad week and I've never written tentacles and I had a bingo square sooo...here we are lmao. Sorry to anyone who's waiting for updates on something. .____. I'm working on 'em, I promise!!!!
> 
> As often is the case, I meant for this to be light, fluffy PWP and instead we have a lot of ~feelings~ and also way too much scientific jargon about octopodes. But also, no one should be surprised by that by now? (In my defence, the bit about the neuroscientist giving Tony a lecture on proper terminology for octopodes is in fact taken from my own life, so. I have in fact had the uniquely strange pleasure of assisting with setting up an octopus research facility. Make of that what you will.)
> 
> Not actually that much to warn for in this one, amazingly. CW: explicit sexual content, tentacles, canon-typical violence I guess? Lmk if I missed something tho! Happy to add on a cw, as always.

> and you realize the one person in the world who loves you  
>  isn’t the one you thought it would be,  
>  and you don’t trust him to love you in a way  
>  you would enjoy.
> 
> – Richard Siken, “A Primer for the Small Weird Loves”

It’s not a kink, per se.

It’s not like Tony’s a furry or anything. (Are you still a furry if you’re into cephalopods?) And it’s not like he’s routinely seeking out a very specific and yet strangely prolific kind of hentai (which has nothing to do with the fact that he’d probably be most interested in ‘consensual tentacle bara’ but he doesn’t know if that’s a thing) or ordering tentacle dicks off of Bad Dragon (not that he would because he could make something _way_ better.) But he hasn’t made any sexy tentacle toys, which he totally would have, if it was a kink. He’s not that guy.

He glances down at the skirt of tentacles that currently make up the lower half of his body, and a frisson of heat shimmers up his spine. They’re a beautiful, deep carnelian red. Tiny chromatophores of darker bloody scarlet and brilliant, bio-luminescent gold dot the landscape of slick skin like freckles, able to shift in pattern and shade if he tries hard enough. Bone white suckers line the underside in perfect rows, gleaming and thickly muscled, bluish in the shadows of their folds.

Okay.

So.

Maybe it’s a _little_ bit of a kink.

“This is fine,” he says, mostly to himself. “I’ve had worse.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” Nico Minoru says.

She’s looking at Tony with the kind of horror that most people save for roadkill and slasher films. Her fingers are pale against the Staff of One except for where they’re stained with her own blood, rust-coloured and flaking against her chapped skin. Tony can sympathise. He’s pretty mortified himself.

“Are you sure-”

“I’m sure,” Tony says shortly, and she nods. A grimace crosses her face, and she takes a breath, her huge black combat boots shuffling awkwardly on the glossy marble floor. Through the broken glass behind her, Tony can see people crawling out of rubble and shouting for each other across the wreckage of overturned halal carts. It’s been a long, long day in New York. Then add on: some severe internal bleeding after an outrider managed to impale Iron-Man using his own momentum while he was going 469 miles per hour; Tony crashing and nearly bleeding out; being uncovered by The Runaways with only Nico Minoru to save him from death; Minoru forgetting she’d already used “comfrey” as a healing spell and apparently, she _thinks_ , getting a result for “calamari” instead, and, well… it’s become a Tony wants a drink kind of day, which is never a good place for him to be.

He scrubs a hand over his face with a sigh. “Help me back into the armour.”

A scruffy blond teen huffs from where he’s apparently decided to watch Minoru’s back. On a better day, Tony would remember his name. Right now every single thought he could possibly have about the boy is uncharitable, so he lets it slide.

Tony’s not even going to think about the deinonychus sniffing around the rubble behind him.

“That’ll slice you up again,” the boy says. He crouches down and pulls off one of the metal gauntlets he wears, putting a hand inside the armour bold as you please. He comes out with bloody fingers and waves them in Tony’s face for emphasis. “I dunno what you’re so sorry about, anyway, Nico. He’s alive, isn’t he?”

“Chase,” Minoru says warningly.

Chase Stein. Dumb jock kid of shitty abusive inventor supervillains. Right.

“I’m sure I could turn you back,” Minoru tries again.

“I’ll wait for Stephen.”

There’s an awkward pause. She looks, incredibly, a little offended.

“Hey, look,” Tony says, gesturing to his completely wound-less torso. “I _am_ alive, the kid’s got that much right. I’m sure the Sorcerer Supreme can fix this. No harm, no foul, okay?”

“There’s a good joke in here about a queer Japanese teenager giving Iron-Man tentacles,” Stein mutters. He’s not even trying to be quiet about it, and Tony frowns at him.

“That seems…racist,” Tony points out. “Also kind of homophobic?”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Minoru says flatly, and Stein holds up his hands in surrender. Minoru ignores him, and turns back to Tony with a determined expression. “I _know_ I can fix the armour. Let me try. It’s the least I can do.”

“I dunno, kid,” Tony sighs.

“I can’t leave you like this,” Minoru says. She gestures at Tony’s…everything. “Come on, you don’t want the paps to catch you like this. It’s busted right now anyway. What have you got to lose?”

“Why are you begging to do him a favour? You don’t owe him shit.”

“Chase, do _me_ a favour and _shut up_.”

Tony ignores their bickering and fixes Minoru with a look. He’s had his eye on The Runaways for a while, mostly because they seem likely candidates for doing something horrible and stupid and getting a bunch of people killed and the wrath of the American government and people riled up in exactly the wrong kinda way. These two in particular have chips on their shoulders a mile wide. But they mean well.

 _These stupid teen heroes always do,_ he thinks. _Not that we were much older when we started._

“Go for it,” he says, waving a hand, and Minoru nods at him like he’s just given her a serious field order.

She turns and studies the armour for a moment. She tilts her head to the side. Then a small, wicked smile overtakes her face. 

“’Tis but a scratch,” she intones, the words deeper and louder than should be possible from a scrap of a girl like Minoru. Tony has the barest moment to laugh, and then the armour is pulling itself back together, metal smoothing out, sheared-off pieces flying towards them from across the battlefield and reassembling before his eyes. The repulsor nodes flicker on, and Tony can hear his comm kick in again—a frantic cacophony of voices from inside the helmet. He winces at that; Cap must be going nuts. He’s pretty sure _someone_ saw him get hit, even if they didn’t see where he went down.

“Nice job, kid.”

Minoru nods at him, then takes a step back and gestures towards Chase. “Need a hand?”

“Let me try on my own, first,” Tony says, and heaves himself up.

Moving is strange in this new body. Everything is rough and painfully dry against his skin. He should probably get into a tub, and soon.

He settles into the armour with a relieved sigh, the cool metal much gentler against his slick skin than the rubble-scattered ground. He gets his tentacles aligned into the legs, four each, then lets the armour close up around him.

“-back online,” he catches Rhodey saying. “I’ve got vitals.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve’s voice cuts in, and oh boy does he sound wrecked. “Tony, can you hear us?”

“It lives,” Tony deadpans. A relieved sigh from multiple people echoes across the comm.

“You scared us!” Wasp says. She sounds genuinely distressed, and Tony grimaces.

“Sorry, dearheart. I didn’t mean to. The suit got a bit knocked around. Just came back online.”

“I saw you get shish-kebabed,” Hawkeye says. “What’s your status?”

“Don’t worry, I ran into some friendlies. I’m all healed up.” He glances over at Minoru, who has the grace to shrug sheepishly. “By some definitions, anyway.”

“Where are you?” Steve demands.

“Hudson Yards,” he says, making a face. “Inside a trashed Patek Philippe.”

“I’m coming to you, ETA 5 minutes.”

Tony opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again. He knows a lost cause when he sees one. He’s the closest thing there is to an expert on the immovable object that is Steve Rogers. Instead, he flicks his comm mic onto mute and turns back to Minoru, who’s beginning to look antsy. He knows they’re not on particularly good terms with SHIELD or the government in general, and the whole city is slowly turning into a crime scene crawling with NYPD and agents.

“Well,” he says, “not that this hasn’t been fun, but why don’t you two get out of here?”

Minoru flashes a wry smile at him and dips her head in agreement. “Sorry again,” she says.

“No worries,” Tony says, waving a hand. He even means it, too. He’s feeling magnanimous, now that he’s a bit more covered up. “I’m not dead. Suit’s shiny and new. No complaints from me, scout’s honour.”

“No way you were a scout,” Minoru scoffs. She jabs an elbow into Stein’s ribs. “Let’s go.”

“What was that for?” Stein complains, scrambling after her. The deinonychus ambles after him, turning to offer Tony a strangely polite dip of the head as it passes by. Right. Delinquent superpowered teens with a sapient dinosaur and…is that a giant nose ring?

“For the tentacle yaoi joke.”

“Okay, that was a totally obvious low-hanging fruit, give me a fuckin’ break…”

Tony watches them go with a quiet laugh, then does his best to lever himself upright. It isn’t as easy as it looks. People seem to forget that the suit is _heavy_. His muscles aren’t just for show, or given to him by a special serum. It’s hard work to move it, even with technological assistance. But that isn’t, in fact, how tentacles work, and so he sighs and bites the bullet.

“J, baby?”

“Yes, sir, and may I say how glad I am to hear your voice?”

“Sweet talker.”

“Only for you, sir.”

Tony sighs. “I need you to drive.”

“Are you injured?”

Tony laughs nervously. He stares out at the smoking rubble across the plaza: the crumpled town cars, the limping civilians. “I think the phrase you’d use here would be: ‘not as such.’”

“I don’t understand. Shall I run a full-body scan?”

Tony sucks in a slow breath.

_This is nothing. JARVIS is your baby._

When Tony speaks, it’s like ripping off a band-aid. “Nico Minoru turned me into a merperson while trying to save my life. I’m half man, half Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.”

There is the briefest of pauses. For JARVIS, that may as well be a lifetime. “You’re serious.”

“I am 100% serious, hand to motherboard.”

“I can see that,” JARVIS says, and he must have done the scan after all. “I’m going to create a sheen of condensation within the inner shell of the greaves and cuisses to alleviate the discomfort you must be feeling. There will be some dramatic temperature changes. Please bear with me.”

“Bless you, J,” Tony whispers gratefully. Then he lets JARVIS lever him to standing, the motions slightly less graceful than they might be if he was piloting the suit himself. “Fuck.”

“Too cold?”

“No,” Tony mutters. A familiar bright blue dot is hurtling towards him on his HUD map. “Steve’s gonna notice.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Damn.” He sighs. “I guess I better face the music.”

“I am leaving a message for Doctor Strange with Miss Clea. She says he is out dealing with the ramifications of the battle.”

“Tell her it’s no rush,” Tony sighs. “Cosmic safety comes before my comparatively painless hentai nightmare. Hell, Doc Ock lives like this willingly.”

“I will tell her you said exactly that,” JARVIS says, a hint of humour in his voice.

God, Stephen is never going to let him live this down.

A familiar figure appears silhouetted in the glass pane, and Tony has the barest moment to gather himself at the sight before Captain America is shouldering his way into the burnt out boutique. A hand reaches up and pulls the cowl back, and then Steve is on him in the next second, his hands coming up to cup the sides of the armour’s neck.

“Faceplate up,” he demands, and Tony acquiesces. He brings his arms around Steve’s waist, because he can do that much right now.

Steve’s eyes are bright with unshed tears. He’s got a smear of blood branching out from the corner of his mouth up towards his right ear, like he took a hard punch to the mouth and split his lip. Whatever the injury was, it’s already healed, and Tony offers him an unsteady smile as he checks him over. Aside from the expected state of post-battle dishevelment, he looks alright.

Well, that’s a lie. He looks like he’s been trying not to cry for the past twenty minutes, which is 100%, undoubtedly Tony’s fault.

“I scared you, huh?”

Steve closes his eyes and brushes their noses together, damn the surveillance cameras and any potential civilians with working phones.

“Clint said you were impaled.”

“I was,” Tony agrees.

“But you’re ok.”

“I’m all healed up.”

Steve’s eyes snap open. He squints carefully at Tony. “How?” he asks suspiciously, and Tony huffs a laugh.

“You are attentive to the point of paranoia,” he tells Steve.

Steve huffs a put-upon sound, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. His body relaxes a little in Tony’s hold, and it’s almost like it’s just them—alone, late afternoon on a Thursday, bickering over takeout. “Most people like an attentive beau,” he says. He reaches up and brushes over Tony’s cheek with one red gloved thumb. “I’m just tryin’ to do right by my fella.”

“You’re a mother hen.”

“’Cause you always hide your injuries.”

“It’s not an _injury_ ,” Tony begins and Steve pulls back with a small sound of triumph and fixes him with a stern look.

“So there _is_ something wrong.”

“I was getting to it!” Tony protests. “Also, using the accent while we’re arguing is cheating. We agreed.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Steve says, and that impish twinkle in his eye will be the death of Tony someday, truly. “What’s wrong, Tony?”

Tony sucks in a shaky breath. “It’s weird,” he admits. “Hey, you like art. Are you a fan of Hokusai, perchance?”

“ _Tony_.”

Tony swallows. Steve’s eyes are so deep in the fading light of day. Like looking down into the Pacific, the waves rocking him in their white-capped embrace. Steve was like that—something so strong it was undeniable, a force of nature wrapped up in wheat-gold hair and his damnable clotted-cream Irish skin that freckled briefly under too much sun.

“Tell me you love me,” Tony says. It is closer to demand than supplication.

“I love you,” Steve answers, immediate and firm. He searches Tony’s eyes. “No matter what.”

Tony smiles, just a small half-quirk of his mouth.

“I’m holding you to that,” he says.

Then, Tony tells him.

Instead of hanging around on the street where he’ll just be frustrated and in the way, Tony decides to head back home to the tower. He’s not going to be much use with the clean-up in this state, and he doesn’t expect he’ll see Stephen for a while. These big, potentially world-ending events tended to require a few days mopping up. And he _is_ alright. Mostly. He hadn’t been lying about that. He can handle this with poise and grace. He’s Tony Stark, god damnnit. They’re just tentacles.

Steve, of course, won’t leave him, and so JARVIS carries them both back to the tower. Steve hops onto Iron Man’s boot like he’s always done and wraps his arms around the armour’s neck. He doesn’t say anything when they land, but he’s watching Tony like a hawk.

The whole sordid thing is going to come out before this indignity is over. Tony knows this, because he knows Steve. It is what he’s been dreading since he looked down and saw a squirming mass of slick red flesh where his legs and cock should be. Tony’s spent most of their relationship distantly dreading the day that Steve realises what he’s signed up for and changes his mind. Distantly, because Steve knows him, too; he knows the demons that live inside Tony’s head. After all their preceding years of friendship, he knows Tony so intimately that it feels like he will never scrape Steve out from the soft hollows of himself. Dating Steve—loving Steve, _making_ _love_ to Steve—had only worsened things. Now they barely needed to speak at all to communicate. Sometimes it felt like Steve could read Tony’s thoughts across his furrowed brow like a ticker tape, plain as the star on his mailed chest.

Tony pours out of the armour like a non-Newtonian fluid. His tentacles scrape uncomfortably against the grit of the dirty poured concrete, and he frowns at the workshop floor.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, because he is a sweetheart who doesn’t deserve this level of insanity.

“Nothing,” Tony tells him. He glances over at his armour, which probably has tentacle goo in it now. “I guess I’ll have to clean that.”

“You winced,” Steve persists, stubborn as he’s ever been, and Tony can’t help but look up at him with a helplessly fond smile. Steve’s much taller than him like this. It’s strange, to have him look down so far. The workshop lights refract through the soft spikes of his hair as an aureole of light. He is, as always, stupidly handsome.

“Sorry,” Tony says, feeling suddenly shy.

Steve frowns at him. “What for?”

Tony gestures vaguely at his body. “You didn’t sign up for-”

He stops, unsure of how to finish the sentence.

_Tentacle yaoi. That’s what Minoru called it._

“I signed up to be an Avenger, and this isn’t even the weirdest thing I’ve seen,” Steve says with good enough humour. He peels his gloves off one by one and leaves them on a worktop. “Anyway, it’s not like you asked for this.”

Tony bites his lip. He doesn’t say anything.

“The floor, it’s kinda rough on you, isn’t it?” Steve says knowingly, and Tony sketches out a tired sigh.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re annoyingly observant?” Tony asks him.

Steve beams at him. “Only by my best pal, Iron Man. Maybe you’ve heard of him?” Tony rolls his eyes in the most exaggerated way possible, if only to see Steve giggle. _What a dork._ “But I _have_ been told it’s an excellent asset for a soldier to have in the field.” He leans down and slides an arm under Tony’s, pulling their torsos flush together. “Hmmm.”

“Hi,” Tony says, maybe a little breathlessly.

“Hi,” Steve says. And then he leans in and kisses Tony on the mouth.

Tony didn’t think Steve would want to touch him like this, and he’s briefly overwhelmed. The kiss is mostly chaste, warm and sweet, and it’s over before Tony can manage to do anything fancy. Steve doesn’t seem to mind. Instead he just grins wider, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that makes Tony want to kiss them.

“It might be a little undignified, but I think I can carry you up to the penthouse jacuzzi.”

“How?”

Steve purses his lips in thought, then leans down and bold as brass gets his arm up and around Tony where his ass used to be, shifting his weight. He’s got Tony’s torso in his right arm with Tony’s left hooked around his neck, and the tentacles he loops loosely over or around his left arm in the strangest bridal carry Tony’s ever been in. Steve’s done this to him while he was in the armour, and as usual, he doesn’t even make a sound from exertion. He may as well have picked up a pillow, and Tony flushes a little under Steve’s grinning observation. He loves it when Steve manhandles him, and Steve knows it. He’s an irrepressible flirt, a delightful detail that Tony couldn’t have guessed at until they started dating, and he’s so damned sweet and insatiable-

“Wow,” Steve murmurs, and he’s not looking at Tony’s face anymore. He’s staring at Tony’s tentacles, which have apparently decided to put on a light show: undulating bioluminescent bands of gold and warm, hot-coal orange line his tentacles from waist to tip in a gently waving pinstripe formation. It’s oddly mesmerising, and entirely embarrassing, because it is absolutely textbook mating behaviour.

“Oh, God,” Tony mutters. Distantly, some horrible part of him smugly notes that Steve does in fact seem impressed.

“Is that for me?” Steve asks, a particular smile breaking over his face. It’s a smile Tony suspects he’s the only one who’s ever seen, and he’s quite glad because if anyone else knew that Steve could be this wicked-

“You can’t possibly want me like this,” Tony blurts out before he can stop himself.

Steve laughs, then tucks Tony more firmly into his body and heads over towards the elevator. “Why not?”

“Because- because I’ve got tentacles, and I don’t-“

“There’s no form you could take,” Steve says seriously, stepping into the elevator and crowding Tony up against the wall, “no change you could undergo, and certainly no physical difference you could possibly have that would make me want you any less than I do.” He grins at Tony, half bashful and half wicked, and oh. Tony is in so, so much trouble. “I thought you knew how much that was, but clearly I’ve got work to do.”

“Steve,” Tony says; he doesn’t know what else to say.

Steve nuzzles into his temple and presses a soft kiss there. It’s strangely tender, and Tony turns his head to study him. He can feel Steve’s pulse through the hyper-sensitive skin of his tentacles.

“Did you know,” Tony asks, because he can’t quite stop himself, “that about 60% of the 500 million or so neurons an octopus has are in their tentacles?”

“There’s an unusual amount of variation on that data, for you.”

“It’s been a while,” Tony protests laughingly. “Sue me.”

Steve grins at him, then hums in consideration. “Does that make you even more brilliant now than you were before?”

“Dunno. Should probably run some tests.”

Steve doesn’t reply to that. Instead he presses another gentle kiss to Tony’s hairline. “Let’s get you into some water first, huh?”

Tony swallows as a wave of indescribable emotion rises up, smothers him under the undeniable knowledge of how much this impossible man loves him. “Yeah. Okay.”

Steve sets him on the chair that Tony keeps in the bathroom, then goes about fiddling with the taps. He’d made a bit of fun when he’d seen it the first time—“What do you need an armchair in the bathroom for, Tony?”—but Tony was certainly grateful for it now. The tiles are blood-curdlingly cold against his sensitive skin.

“JARVIS, what’s the ideal water salinity for an octopus?”

“The recommended aquarium salinity for the common octopus is 36 grams per liter, Captain. Recommended tank temperature is around 76 degrees Fahrenheit, which is much cooler than the temperature you are likely considering at present. I would suggest turning off the hot tap.”

Steve sighs but does as he’s told. “Guess octopi don’t like hot baths as much as Tony does, huh?”

“Octopodes,” Tony corrects him, and Steve raises his eyebrows and nods: _go on_. “Octopus’s root isn’t actually latinate like most uninformed English-speakers assume, because, hey, super weird word, must be Latin, right? But actually the word is Greek in origin. _Ὀκτώπους_ , from _ὀκτώ_ , meaning eight, and _πούς_ , meaning foot. So the more accurate term is octopodes, from the Greek, not octopi, from the Latin.”

Steve’s not moving. His hand has frozen where it had been testing the slowly rising water, his ear still cocked to the side to show Tony’s he’s listening, but he’s not moving. Tony swallows, drags his gaze away from the strong lines of Steve’s shoulders. He glues his eyes to the cobalt tile patterning the bathroom floor.

“Sorry, had a neuroscientist friend in college who was writing a thesis on octopodes—big at the time, they’re so smart and we didn’t have the slightest clue about them—and used to go off on this rant. He had thirteen of ‘em shipped in under the supervision of…” He trails off, glancing up at Steve. He’s babbling again. “Uh. Doesn’t matter.”

Steve glances up at Tony from over his shoulder. His eyes are crinkled at the corners. “Of course,” he says, mouth twitching.

Tony frowns, slightly stung, but Steve makes the cutest little noise of protestation at him. He comes over and tips Tony’s face up with wet fingertips, kissing him softly on the brow, over his eyes, the corner of his mouth.

“I meant, _of course_ you speak ancient Greek and know everything there is to know about octo- uh. Octo _podes_ ,” Steve says, pronouncing the word carefully as though he’s trying to get a feel for it in his mouth.

Tony sucks in a shaky breath. “Right.”

Steve grimaces. He squats, putting himself a little lower than Tony so he can look up into his face. He rests his palms over the fat base of two tentacles, then seems to get distracted, running his hands up and down the slick surface. His thumb slips around to gently ghost over one sucker, then proves bolder, pressing against it until it clings to the wide pad of his thumb. Steve exhales, soft and surprised. Interest quirks one dark blonde eyebrow down into a curious furrow.

Tony doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t mean to. But under Steve’s hands, his body lights up like fucking Dyker Heights in Christmastime. It bathes Steve’s lovely, unblemished skin in warm light. It suffuses the faint flush of pleasure that comes to his cheeks in gold, burnishes him like a bronze sculpture. He looks positively angelic.

“You’re…” Steve falters, then offers Tony a wry smile. “You’re lovely like this.”

Tony really, _really_ wants that to be true.

“Talk to me, Tony. What’s got you all twisted up?”

Tony shakes his head. He feels like his body is just one bright, raw nerve. He’s so breakable under Steve’s hands. But his body betrays him—tentacles, with minds of their own in the truest sense of the word, have slowly begun to wrap around Steve. They touch the scale and then retreat, feeling gently along the uncomfortable edges of metal until one finds the dip of skin between neck and cowl. The very tip rests there, soft and trusting, against the place where Steve’s carotid beats steady and warm.

Steve studies him, his brow wrinkled in the same way it does when he’s considering new intel. He drops his eyes to Tony’s tentacles, then slides his hand down one, a single fingertip tracing one thin ribbon of gold as it undulates across Tony’s skin. The noise that escapes Tony’s throat is indecent, and he bites his lip hard to stifle it. He pulls his tentacles away from Steve’s body, curling them back around the legs of the chair.

Steve frowns at him. “Tony-”

“Salt,” Tony blurts out, and Steve blinks. “Fancy organic sea salt. We have plenty in the kitchen. JARVIS, calculate how much we need and help our dear captain out, would you?”

“Of course,” JARVIS says smoothly. “If you would make your way down to the communal kitchen, Captain, I believe there is a jar in the pantry.”

Steve’s jaw works a few times, and for a moment Tony thinks he might decide to be stubborn. Then he sighs, and pushes himself up. He pulls the mail over his head and drops it to the floor with a tinkling clunk, so that he’s standing there in just the bottom of his Cap uniform and a plain white t-shirt. Half-dressed, with his hair sticking up in sweat-damp golden spikes, he looks, unfortunately, edible. Tony’s eyes travel over the slight strip of skin where the shirt has ridden up, licks his lips at the hint of cut muscle he sees there. He imagines a line of perfectly round pink bruises marching over Steve’s skin, and the image makes him shudder from the top of his head all the way to the tips of his tentacles.

Steve smiles at him, wide and beautiful. A hint of satisfaction creeps over his face.

“Be back in a sec,” he says, eyes flashing with gentle amusement. Then he turns around and leaves the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next (and final) chapter will be posted by the end of the week. Just finessing the ending.
> 
> Hope you're enjoying! Leave a comment and I promise I'll reply sooner rather than later. I really do love to get them in my inbox!


	2. hypertonic hymns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like twice as long as the first chapter...lol.
> 
> Okay, spoilery cws for this one: light BDSM, bondage, mild pain play, filming during sex
> 
> Enjoy!

The thing is, Tony knows he’s being a coward.

He remembers the first time he and Steve made it to a bed—Steve’s body curled around his, warm and safe.

 _You didn’t trust me_ , Steve had said, and the truth of that hurt. It ached all the way to his bones, made his sternum feel like it was bare to the world. _That’s my fault, as much as it is yours._

What Tony wishes he’d replied with is: _It’s not your fault I’m such a self-conscious, self-doubting, insecure asshole._

But of course he didn’t say that. How could he? He knew exactly the kind of pained disappointment that would flood Steve’s face, wreathed in dewy sweat that somehow made him gleam ethereal instead of looking oversexed and exhausted like any normal person. Steve had been right, when he’d first pressed Tony to a stairwell and kissed him until his brain stuttered to a screeching halt. He knew and loved Steve too well to hurt him.

“Fucking that man has done nothing but make my stupid schoolboy crush even more disgusting.”

“I don’t think it’s a ‘schoolboy crush’ when you are in a relationship, sir.” JARVIS’ voice is gentle as Tony’s ever heard it. “This is hard for you, but I am not sure I understand why.”

Tony swallows. “It’s a sex thing,” he explains. His voice is toneless, dead. “It’s…weird, and creepy, and not something I would have ever wanted to share with anybody.”

“I do not think that Captain Rogers finds you ‘weird’ or ‘creepy’, sir.”

“That’s because he’s- he’s fucking perfect,” Tony spits. His tentacles writhe beneath him, flushing a dark, bloody red. “He tries so hard to be nice to me because he knows that I’m a fucked up mess inside, it’s not-” Tony’s voice breaks, horrifyingly, his eyes stinging. “It’s not _real_.”

He scrubs his hands over his face furiously, trying to put himself back together. “Fuck.”

“Sir,” JARVIS says, tentative, and Tony’s such an _asshole_ , “every piece of data I have points to Captain Rogers’ love for you being quite sincere.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Tony says. He huffs a half-laugh. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it is I who should apologise,” JARVIS says. He sounds frustrated, which makes Tony’s chest ache all over again. “You wish him to…appreciate you in this form for the sake of it, and not simply endure it because he loves you. Because you are aroused by it. And you think he will find your desires repulsive. Is that correct?”

A fierce pride wells up inside of him. It is hilariously inappropriate under the circumstances, but his body doesn’t seem to care about that. He turns his face to the camera he knows sits in the corner of his bathroom, a small smile breaking over his face.

“You amaze me every day, J.”

“The sentiment is quite mutual, sir.”

If Tony’s responding laugh is a little wet, well, he knows JARVIS wouldn’t judge him for it. He closes his eyes and leans back in the arm chair, tips his head back and just breathes. For a few minutes, he luxuriates in the comfortable silence. It’s so warm in the bathroom, certainly JARVIS’ doing. The fight against the outrider army had been exhausting beyond belief. Tony just wants to sleep.

The bathroom door opens, and Tony cracks one eye to the sight of Steve carrying a clear plastic takeout container full of sea salt.

“Hey,” Steve says softly, and Tony lifts a hand in greeting. A few tentacles mirror the motion, and Steve’s face brightens with soft delight.

“Hi.”

Steve leans over and turns off the tap, then begins the slow process of stirring the salt into the water.

“Turn on the jets,” Tony tells him.

“Huh?” Steve turns, expression adorably confused. “Won’t that mess up the tub?”

“Nah,” Tony says, waving a hand. “Salt water hot tubs are a thing. Supposed to have health benefits. Crunchy granola bullshit, mostly, unless you count the people who want it as an alternative to chlorine in which case, sure, yeah, fewer chemicals…” Tony tamps down on his babbling and clears his throat. “It’ll mix faster that way.”

Steve fixes him with a look but does as he’s told. He and JARVIS go back and forth a few times about temperatures and salinity, but Tony tunes them out. He peels off the top half of the flight suit that seemed to be all that was left of his clothes after Minoru’s magical mishap—wow, say that five times fast—and then frowns down at the dried blood that’s still left in a macabre ring around the gap left by his floating ribs. The skin in the centre is smooth and unmarked, so really, all props to Minoru. This would have been a pretty bad one. He scratches at it with a thumb, making a face when it flakes off only to stick and congeal to his itchy tentacles. 

“Gross,” he mutters.

“ _Tony_.”

Tony looks up. Steve’s face is wan, his eyes wide. He sucks in a breath, then turns and pulls a washcloth from the sink cabinet. He runs it under a hot tap in the sink. His jaw is tight with suppressed emotion when he turns and kneels down in front of Tony’s chair.

“May I?”

“You may,” Tony says, teasing, because he can’t handle the look on Steve’s face.

Steve doesn’t react. He takes him at his word, gently wiping the blood away in methodical, circular strokes. When he’s done, he leans in and presses a soft kiss to the centre of Tony’s chest, where the white tracery of scars from all of his myriad surgeries sits. Then he stands and tips Tony forward, nose to sternum, and does the same thing to his back.

Steve touches him like he’s something precious and breakable. Tony should be used to this, but he never quite manages it. Instead it just reduces him to this: misty eyed and trembling like a new-born fawn in the warm circle of Steve’s arms.

Steve draws back, then tosses the bloody hand towel into the sink to deal with later. It’s unusually thoughtless of him. Leaving blood untreated on the fine white cloth may stain, which is the kind of thing Tony wouldn’t think twice about but would typically bother Steve immensely. But instead he gathers Tony up again and presses his face into side of his neck, breathing in great, slow breaths that seem to suck everything from Tony and leave him winded.

“I was so afraid,” Steve whispers. “Clint was so sure he saw you go down hard, but we couldn’t find you. And you weren’t on comms, and I’d been ‘bout half a mile up trying to corral the civilians in Grand Central, and-”

“Shh,” Tony tells him. He grips him tight, tentacles winding around Steve’s legs as he hugs him around the waist. “I’m okay.”

Steve huffs into Tony’s neck. He drags in a shaky breath, then pulls away, bright-eyed and unashamed.

“Let’s get you into the tub.”

He lowers Tony in gently. The water is cooler than he usually likes his baths, but it’s certainly not unpleasant. A sigh of relief escapes him as he settles, the faint itching that had been spreading over his skin disappearing almost immediately. He leans back with a decadent sigh, eyes closed, sinking down until the water is up to his neck.

Steve makes a sound that Tony knows well: a low, winded sound of want. It’s surprising enough to make Tony open one eye.

Steve’s sitting on the lip of the tub, halfway through pulling his boots off. It takes him a long few seconds to drag his eyes up to Tony’s face, his cheeks flushed vaguely pink.

“Joining me?” Tony asks, surprised.

Steve’s brow furrows. “Do you not want me to?” He swallows, the corners of his mouth turning down. “I just…I wanted-”

“No, no,” Tony tells him. He gets it. Steve wants cuddles after a near-death scare. “Come on in. Water’s tepid.”

Steve cracks a smile. He pulls his last boot off, then his shirt, and Tony watches the play of muscles in his back with his tongue pressed hard against the back of his teeth. Steve’s body is magnificent, a miracle every single time.

“The most incredible thing is that I actually love you for your personality even when you look like this,” Tony murmurs, his eyes travelling unabashed over Steve’s body as he shimmies out of his pants, leans over to show Tony the toned curve of his ass as he works them off his ankles. Steve grins sweetly at him over one slab-cut shoulder.

“Charmer,” he accuses, but there’s no heat in it. “And you say I’m the romantic.”

“You’ve ruined me,” Tony tells him seriously, and Steve’s face softens. He steps into the tub and sinks into the water, his eyes dancing.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Steve asks him. He’s adorable, really, in a way that makes Tony wonder if it’s calculated. Steve is a masterful tactician, and Tony knows that he can’t possibly be as smooth as he acts half the time. The real Steve is such a dork. He suspects, actually, that much of Steve’s flirting is planned, but even if it is, he doesn’t mind at all. It’s flattering that Steve would try so hard.

“Yeah?”

“I can tell that you’re embarrassed, about, y’know.” He gestures to the light show that is currently Tony’s lower half.

“That’s not much of a secret.”

“No, the secret is that I love that you’re so easy for me,” Steve admits, and oh, _wow_ , does that flush Tony all the way up to his ears. He knows it doesn’t show, but his face feels like he could light a candle off it.

“What?” Tony manages.

“You heard me,” Steve says. He’s gaining confidence, in that way he does sometimes—a freight train picking up speed. Each small success buoys his confidence until he’s unstoppable, smug and avaricious. “I worried a lot before, about your reputation. How many people you’d gone with. I thought maybe I’d be too boring for you.”

“ _Boring?_ ”

“I know it’s silly,” Steve says, loosing a short, self-deprecating bark of laughter. He rubs a wet hand over his head, ducks Tony’s gaze for a moment before his eyes flick back up to meet him, head on. It knocks the breath from Tony. “But I love that I can surprise you. That I can make you tongue tied. The great Tony Stark and his marvellous brain, sweet as a doe just for me. It’s like your body telling me you love me, over and over again. It’s real.”

“Steve,” Tony says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, moving closer. Water laps softly against the side of the tub. “That exact expression.” And then he leans in and kisses Tony, hard, with unmistakable intent.

Tony melts under Steve’s hands. He always does, for him. He trembles, his arms coming up to grip the corded muscle of Steve’s forearms, sliding up and over his shoulders, then down, firm, all the way to his ass. Steve makes a luscious sound into his mouth, tips his head and kisses him deeper, like he’s trying to crawl into Tony’s skin. It flushes him up to the tips of his ears, makes him ache with longing. He can feel Steve with every tentacle—wrapped around one ankle, and over the back of one knee, and the soft, lightly-furred place between his thighs-

Steve wrenches his mouth away with a wet sound that curls hot and writhing in the pit of Tony’s belly. His eyes are huge in his face.

“I can feel you _everywhere_ ,” he gasps, face flushed pink. “Oh, Lord Christ, Tony-”

Tony could barely stop himself before. Now, with Steve pliant in his arms, he doesn’t even try. One tentacle slithers up between them, curling over Steve’s chest, pressing suckers all over him until one secures over a nipple. The sound Steve makes is nearly a squeak, his face burning, his eyes wide and dark with desire.

“Tony,” he gaps, and Tony dives back in and kisses him, fingers clenching hard in the meat of his arse. It makes Steve moan, bucking up against him, and the sound he makes when his cock skates over one slick tentacle is obscene. His fingers tighten almost painfully on Tony’s jaw before he’s able to control himself again, but he’s lost all finesse to his kissing. He’s almost panting for it, his mouth open against Tony’s, eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, mouthing his next words more than he says them. “Oh my God.”

Something settles into place in Tony’s chest. A small smile slowly makes its way over his face, breaking warm and welcome as daylight. “I’m always so surprised by how kinky you are,” Tony murmurs, and Steve shivers sweetly in his arms. “Darling-”

“Please,” Steve manages, voice tight. He presses his face into Tony’s neck, overwhelmed. “I…”

“Tell me,” Tony demands, and Steve hitches a breath that breaks in the middle. “Tell me, baby, I want to hear how I make you feel.”

“It’s…I _did_ tell you, you’re everywhere, it’s…” Steve squirms, clenching his fingers in Tony’s hair, just shy of painful. “I want you inside me. Right now.”

Tony groans, tentacles tightening around Steve. It’s enough to make him moan, struggling a little against Tony’s grip. Then he freezes, pulling away just far enough to meet Tony’s eyes.

“Can you…?”

“Can I what?”

Steve looks frantic. Tony can feel Steve’s pulse, the sweat beading against his skin. “Hold me down,” he whispers, barely loud enough to hear.

Tony’s throat vaporlocks. For a moment he can’t even breathe, and the two of them just stare at each other, shock quickly turning into desperate need.

With a gentle nudge from his human brain, Tony’s tentacles coil around Steve’s thighs and calves, spreading him apart with gentle, unyielding force. They’re strong, his tentacles: thick bands of muscle and nothing else, sinuous and clinging. Steve lets out a quiet sob into Tony’s mouth, jaw slack as he licks inside, and Tony sucks on his tongue as he manoeuvres to get both of Steve’s nipples attached to suckers, one curling around Steve’s cock in a tight grip to prevent him from coming.

Steve is a revelation like this. In the beginning, Steve had been quite toppy. He was insatiable, and bolder than Tony might have expected, but after a few times it made a strange kind of sense. Steve was sure of his welcome. He trusted Tony. It was humbling, to see Steve let himself be selfish and just take what he wanted for once. It was something he never did, but Steve had confessed, sex-drunk and satiated, that it was because Tony had always been the one to push him to indulge. Now that he knew that Tony wanted what he wanted, indulgence was easy.

“All these years, all I’ve ever wanted to do is take care of you,” Steve had admitted, a beatific smile on his face. “And now I can just…do exactly what I like, and you seem to have a good time, every time.”

Steve was the urban dictionary definition of a service top. All he wanted was to give Tony exactly what would make him come apart, mindless with pleasure. So Tony had learned, with the delight of unwrapping a brand new toy, that on the days when Tony was feeling more aggressive Steve was more than happy to roll over and take it.

“More,” Steve demands, and Tony bites punishingly along his jaw. “Tony, I need-”

“Impatient,” Tony chides, and Steve groans, struggling against the coils around his thighs. He scratches his fingernails over Tony’s scalp, squirming deliciously as he tries to get more friction. “Do you even know how octopodes mate?”

“Oh, God, spare me the biology lecture,” Steve groans. He presses a laughing kiss to Tony’s clavicle. “I love listening to you, but not right now, please-”

Tony squeezes his arse, pulling the globes apart in what he knows from experience is a maddening tease. Steve just about swallows his tongue as Tony slips his fingers closer, skirting the edges of his hole.

“ _Tony_.”

“I need your informed consent, Steve.”

“You have it, you can, just-”

“Pay attention,” Tony tuts, and Steve groans, struggling against his grip. He’s not trying with all his strength. Tony doesn’t think he’s actually stronger than him like this. But he’s strong enough for the illusion of Steve being trapped, and so he watches him squirm for a few moments, revelling in the rare pleasure of his indignity.

Eventually, Steve subsides with a huff, bowing his head. He looks at Tony from up between his lashes. “I’m listening,” he says, and Tony smiles at him.

Tony pulls a very specific tentacle out of the water and curls it in front of Steve’s face. “This,” he says, twisting it so that Steve can see it from all sides, “is called the hectocotylus.”

Steve stares at it, his mouth dropping open a little. He licks his lips. “Is that…?”

“It’s what delivers spermatophores into the mantle of a female octopus. Or sometimes a male. We’ve observed that, too. It’s longer than all the rest, maybe because some octopodes engage in what’s called sexual cannibalism. And this here, at the end, is the ligula.” He curls the tentacle in so that Steve can look at it. The last few inches of it has no suckers, just a slightly plumper section vaguely in the shape of an elongated spade. The underside of the ligula is bright white: ridged, erect, and inflexible. “In other words, this is the closest thing I’ve got to a cock.”

Steve lets out a broken-off moan, then bites his lip, flushing red all the way to his ears. Interesting reaction, that. Tony grins and bookmarks that for later.

“I have no idea if it’ll feel anything like fucking you usually does,” Tony continues, with affected nonchalance. “Octopodes release spermatophores, which are incredibly sticky packets of spermatozoa. They’re contained capsules, meant to hang out inside the cavity of something called an oviducal gland until a female is ready to use them. Fertilization of the eggs doesn’t happen instantly, the way it does for humans. An octopus can keep some sperm on ice for when she’s feeling like making some babies. Isn’t that nifty?”

“If you’re asking if you can come inside me,” Steve begins, but Tony just shakes his head. Out of curiosity, he brings the tentacle a little closer to Steve’s face. Steve, filthy, _gorgeous_ Steve, opens his mouth for it without being asked.

“Baby,” Tony says, hesitating, but he hasn’t secured Steve’s arms or torso at all. He can’t stop Steve from reaching up and grabbing it, guiding it towards his mouth. He pulls away, but too late: Steve gets his mouth around the tip of the ligula, and the sensation shivers all the way down to Tony’s core. He can feel so _much_ with his tentacles, almost taste the slick wetness of Steve’s mouth as he closes his lips around the tentacle and sucks, hard and intent. His eyes have been swallowed up by black pupil, just a thin blue ring around the evidence of his desire as he tracks Tony’s expression with his eyes.

The first thing Steve had done when he found out Tony was amenable to what he previously had thought was an unrequited love was show him precisely how good he was at sucking cock. He doesn’t disappoint now. It takes Steve a moment to adjust to the size and shape of it, but then his tongue slips inside, rubbing along the ridges that line the underside of the ligula, and Tony moans like he’s being paid to. His spine bows with it, and Steve groans around the tentacle in his mouth. Sparks fly behind Tony’s closed eyes: a feedback loop of pleasure.

Tony loses himself for longer than he means to. Steve is warm everywhere Tony is touching him, slick and wet and beading with delicious sweat. He wonders, idly, if perhaps octopodes are able to taste through their tentacles somehow, the way narwhals can sense salinity with their horns. He’s feeling things he isn’t sure he could describe in human terms. Everything, all around him, is Steve. Steve.

“ _Steve_ ,” Tony groans, and Steve responds in kind. He pulls his mouth away with a slick sound that makes all the hair on Tony’s body stand on end.

“Fuck me,” Steve says, voice wrecked, and Tony blinks blearily at him. “Tony, you’re killing me. Do you need me to beg? I’m begging, please-”

“The spermatophore-”

“Tony, _please_ -”

“-of a giant Pacific octopus is a metre long,” Tony finishes, and Steve’s mouth closes with an audible click. “I’m at least twice the size of one right now.”

A visible shudder moves through Steve’s body in a wave. His eyes snap shut, his whole body shaking in Tony’s grasp. The sound he makes is close to a whimper. “ _Fuck_ ,” he mouths.

“You…” Tony blinks at him. “You _like_ that idea, you kinky fucker, holy shit-”

“I am going to be finished before you fuck me if you don’t stick that thing inside me right the hell now,” Steve gasps. He slumps forward, still trembling in Tony’s arms. “I think I just came dry. My _God_ , Tony…”

Tony wraps an arm around his shoulders, carding his fingers into Steve’s hair. His hands are shaking. “You’re fucking breathtaking, Steve Rogers. You gorgeous thing, you’ve been so sweet for me.”

“I looked up ‘Hokusai tentacles’ while I was in the kitchen,” Steve confesses, and Tony pauses in his ministrations. “What I found was pretty illuminating. This is another one of those sex things I didn’t know about before we started dating, right?”

“Ah,” Tony says, caught out.

Steve pulls back, winding his arms back around Tony’s neck. His eyes are black as obsidian—just as fathomless, just as sharp. “I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it, Shellhead. Are you listening?” His voice is slow and sure, deep with desire. Tony couldn’t ignore him if he tried. “I love _you_ , Tony. Inside and out. Top to bottom. Everything you are. Everything you’ll become.” Steve’s leaning in as he speaks, closer, closer, until their lips brush with each word. “I want it all. There is nothing you could say to scare me away. I want every part of you. As thoroughly as I belong to you, I want- I _need_ you to belong to me. So if you want informed consent, here it is.” He leans close, mouth skating over Tony’s jaw, to drip utter filth into Tony’s ear like poison. “I want you to put your hands back on my ass. Spread me open. Work your big, wet cock inside of me, and fuck me like you damn well _mean_ it.”

Tony’s brain is white static. He doesn’t know if he’s even breathing. He doesn’t know if he even remembers how to breathe. He moves without conscious thought, hands doing precisely as asked and settling on Steve’s ass. It’s all muscle, thick and perfect in his hands, and he pulls Steve apart almost brutally, exposing his hole to the tentacle that is curling back over Steve’s hip, questing, enjoying the feeling of skin sliding across the sensitive tip as it traverses Steve’s body. With Steve’s mouth pressed against his ear—his hot, blushing cheek pressed up against his own—Tony can hear the little unvoiced whimpers and moans that Steve holds back. He turns his face, pressing closer, so that Steve’s every gasp is spoken right into his ear.

“You like it when I work you open with nothing but my cock,” Tony murmurs, and Steve lets out a high, desperate sound of want. “But I’m a bit bigger like this.”

“Don’t care,” Steve gasps, barely verbal. “Want it.”

Tony grins, feral, and clenches his hands hard on Steve’s arse as he presses the tip of his ligula into Steve’s tight, trembling asshole. The sound that Steve makes is a little loud, and Tony pulls his head away with a cruel kind of laugh. He dips down and bites Steve’s bared throat, then keeps on going: pushing, slow and inexorable, the ridges on the underside catching against the tight rim and leaving Steve shaking in his arms.

“Oh, oh, _oh_ ,” he’s saying, more sound than word. He rolls his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “Oh _fuck_ , _yes_ , please, don’t- ah, don’t stop-”

“Gorgeous, filthy slut,” Tony tells him fondly, and Steve pinks, whining into Tony’s chest. “God, look at you take it. You want it so bad. Next time I’ll turn you over, bend you over the side of the tub and spread you open so I can watch-”

“You can, you can,” Steve chants, and Tony hushes him. He’s working the tip of his ligula in and out, now, and Steve is rocking with it, clenching and releasing beautifully with each thrust. “More. Give me more, I can take it-”

Tony gives it to him. He pushes and doesn’t stop, just keeps going, trusting the slickness of his skin and Steve’s unbelievable body. He keeps going until the widest part of the ligula slips into Steve with a squelch that he can feel, and Steve lets out a broken whine and presses his face hard into Tony’s chest. He pants openmouthed against the skin, his whole body shaking.

“Big,” he manages, and Tony fails to suppress a simple, male kind of grinning pride that bubbles up from somewhere caveman stupid in his otherwise highly evolved brain. “Fuck, that’s so- it just keeps _going_.”

The appeal of this, in the moments when Tony’s let himself think about it, rests largely on two things: intimate hands-on bondage, and the staggering implications of a prehensile cock. He lets the ridged tip of his ligula slide against Steve’s inner walls, slow and mean, until he finds the place he’s looking for and curls into it, vicious and with more dexterity than a normal human cock would be able to.

Steve arches like he’s been electrocuted, eyes wide and sightless. His mouth drops open on an unvoiced sound of pleasure. His eyes roll back into his head, and Tony just keeps going: slow and hard, back and forth.

The heat and the friction is incredible. Steve is clenching down tight, gasping, breathless. Wet hair falls into his face as he fixes his hands on either side of Tony, clenched fists resting on the tub because he’s afraid of hurting Tony or breaking something. His whole body is trembling. He’s beautiful.

“You’re fucking stunning like this,” Tony tells him, awed in the old sense of the word. This is fathomless. He can’t believe he gets to have this. “Fucking hell, baby, look at you.”

“Tony,” Steve whimpers. He’s coming apart. He’s desperate, but he can’t even manage to say what he wants. All he can do is writhe as Tony works him over, again and again, hard as he wants. He can’t break Steve. Tony can take whatever he wants. “Tony, _Tony_ , oh God _fuck_ let me come, _let_ _me_ _come_ -”

“If I’m remembering correctly,” Tony hums, “giant Pacific octopodes mate for upwards of four hours sometimes.”

The sound of frustration Steve lets out at that approaches a scream. “Please, I’ll come again, as many times as you want, you know I can-”

“Listen to you,” Tony says, and he can’t stop himself now. He’s drunk on power, and his orgasm is so far off—a freight train still climbing a mountain in the distance. For once, he’s the one who could go all day. “Begging so loud and shameless. Can you hear yourself?”

Tony twists his hectocotylus deep into him and Steve lets out a loud, voiceless cry. There’s a lot to listen to: the sound of the bathwater splashing against the tiles, and the wet sounds of Steve’s breathing, the cries and moans he’s letting loose without a single care of who might hear him. He’s so beautiful in his submission. Tony can probably count the times he’s gotten to see this on one hand, and he feels like he’s stolen something precious every single time. Steve undoes him, wholly and truly.

Steve’s crying, now, in the best possible way. His eyes are wet with tears as he shakes in Tony’s grip, and when he looks down into the water Steve’s cock is so red it looks painful. Tony’s tentacle is wrapped around the base and his sac, keeping him from coming, but it doesn’t stop Steve from trying to fuck up into his hold. He’s shaking from head to toe.

“Please, please, _Tony_ , Tony please,” he’s chanting, over and over. His eyes are squeezed shut, the muscles in his arms straining. “ _Pleasepleaseplease_ -”

Tony takes pity on him. He tips Steve’s chin up with one finger until they’re face to face. He brushes their noses together, then kisses him.

Steve’s desperate for it. Sloppy. Tony takes control of the kiss, turning it slow, dirty. He matches their pace to the gruelling grind he’s set up inside Steve’s body, unlike any other fucking he’s ever done before. Slowly, Steve gentles, until his mouth is slack and taking Tony’s tongue. He sucks on it sweetly, and Tony feels it when he goes completely under, shuddering hard but otherwise quiescent in his grip. When he pulls away Steve moans, low and exquisite, and rests his forehead against Tony’s.

“Good,” Tony croons. “Good boy.”

“I want to come,” Steve says, broken. Tears gleam on his flushed-pink face. He’s…

“I can’t explain how looking at you like this makes me feel,” Tony admits. He lets go of Steve’s ass on to reach up and brush the tears away, smearing them into the streak of blood. On the other side, he presses his mouth to Steve’s cheek and licks the taste of them from his lips.

“Yours,” Steve slurs, and Tony shivers. He leans in, takes Steve’s mouth again.

For a while they just kiss. Steve lets him do as he likes, fingers moving fitfully over Tony’s neck, shoulders, up and down his biceps. When Tony deepens the kiss he buries his fingers into Tony’s hair and moans for him, easy.

“You wanna come?” Tony murmurs when they pull apart. He picks up the pace a little, twisting his hectocotylus brutally into Steve, pushing more of the tentacle inside of him. Steve looses a completely broken gasp, eyes flashing open wide. “You wanna come for me, baby?”

“Please,” Steve sobs. “Please, let me come, I need to- I need to come-”

“Ask me nicely.”

“Please Tony,” Steve begs, “please, I _love_ you, please Tony, Tony please-”

Tony brings the slender tip of one restraining tentacle up to Steve’s flushed cock. He dips the very tip into his slit, and Steve’s back bows, his mouth open with no sound emerging. He’s a fucking vision. Tony is so, so lucky, he’s just unbelievable-

“Look at me,” Tony demands, and Steve forces himself back. His fists are clenched hard behind Tony’s head, arms trembling where they’re looped around his neck. He’s looking at Tony almost sightlessly, so wracked with pleasure that he can barely focus his eyes. “Incredible.”

Gently, he uncurls his tentacle from around Steve’s sac. Steve makes a punched out sound, his lashes fluttering.

“Eyes on me, gorgeous,” Tony tells him. “Ready?”

“Tony,” Steve whimpers, and Tony pulls both tentacles away from his cock entirely at the same time that he drives his hectocotylus into Steve, deep and fast and hard as he can, skating right over Steve’s sweet spot every time.

Steve’s whole body locks up. He’s terrified, Tony knows, of hurting anyone, and so instead it’s like he turns to stone. He doesn’t manage to keep his eyes open, his back bowing as his climax shudders through him, jaw creaking audibly as his teeth scrape together. The sound he makes is stifled and almost inhuman, a muffled scream, and some of his come shoots up out of the water it’s so strong, splashing hot over Tony’s wet chest. Tony works him through it, his pulse thundering his ears, weirdly echoed by the feeling of Steve’s against all of his tentacles.

He comes for a long time, and when he’s done, he slumps forward entirely into Tony’s hold, boneless. He’s still shaking, shivers all over his body, and he whines and squirms at the realisation that Tony is still deep inside of him, thrusting slow and languid.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, with emphasis. The word is drawn out nearly into three syllables. “ _Tony_.”

“Mhmm?”

Steve whines and tucks his face into the side of Tony’s neck. “Oh my God.”

Tony smiles, all teeth. He leans down and presses a kiss to Steve’s temple. “Gimme a colour, baby.”

“Green,” Steve says, immediately. “Neon, flashing green. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Tony, can’t you tell- _oh_. _Fuckfuckfuck_ , I- I’m-”

Tony watches, astonished, as a second, smaller orgasm washes over Steve. He clenches down hard on Tony, and Tony groans at the feeling of it. Finally, he’s beginning to feel like he might be able to come sooner rather than later.

“Tony,” Steve manages, and Tony reaches up and smooths his hair back from his forehead. “ _Tony_.”

“Did you need something?” Tony asks him, because he’s enjoying this way too much.

“I love you,” Steve says fervently, and Tony laughs. He peppers kisses all over the side of Steve’s face. “Don’t stop. I think- God, I’m going to come _again_.”

“You better,” Tony says viciously, and then he picks up the pace.

Steve wails. There isn’t a better word for it. His jaw slackens, slumped entirely into Tony’s arms, and now Tony’s getting ideas. This is his deepest, darkest fantasy: Steve, drunk on pleasure and at his mercy, too tired to do anything but take it. This is how he loves it, giving and receiving. This is the most precious gift he could have ever gotten.

Through a combination of tentacles and arms he moves Steve until he’s draped over the edge of the tub, facing the mirror. He’s blissed out, moaning like a harlot when Tony handles him. He can barely keep his eyes open.

“How are you feeling?” Tony asks him, pulling out slowly, and Steve moans. He arches his back a little.

“Fuck me,” he says, and Tony laughs. He spreads Steve with his hands, pulling his cheeks apart to watch as his ligula worms its way back into Steve’s body. He’s pink and swollen, here, dusted with a fine layer of near-invisible blonde hair. He clenches greedily around Tony as he pushes in, deeper, all the way until his suckers are sitting at the rim, just outside of Steve’s body.

“C’n take more,” Steve slurs, and Tony releases one side and smacks him, watching the flesh bounce. It makes Steve clench deliciously around him, and so he does it again. And again.

“Tony,” Steve groans. “ _Fuck_.”

“You have no idea what the view is like back here,” Tony tells him conversationally.

“Take a picture, last longer,” Steve sasses him. The retort is somewhat defeated by the fact that he’s so deep under that he can barely form words, but Tony considers it. He leans over Steve and reaches for his belt pouch, fingers fumbling in the pocket where he knows Steve keeps his phone.

“Oh fuck,” Steve says, from where he’s half-trapped under Tony’s body.

“You asked for it,” Tony reminds him. He hums when his fingers close around a familiar smooth rectangle. “Gotcha.”

“Tony,” Steve groans, and Tony grins. “Please.”

“Please what?” Tony asks. He leans back, spreading his free hand over Steve’s ass and pulling him open for the camera. “Gimme a colour, baby.”

“Green.”

“Good boy.”

Steve groans. He tips his head forward and rests his cheek on the porcelain, eyes closed. “Fuck me.”

Tony takes a photo with the sound on. The artificial shutter sound makes Steve shudder. He pulls out, until just the very tip of him is breaching Steve’s body, then takes another photo.

“ _Tony_.”

Tony swipes over to video. He presses record, then pulls out entirely and films Steve’s desperately winking hole. He wriggles his tentacle for effect, then rests the very tip at Steve’s entrance.

“Tony,” Steve whines.

“Ask me,” Tony tells him.

“Tony, fuck me.”

Tony releases his ass and slaps him, open handed and loud. It’s more startling than painful, but Steve moans like a slut for it anyway. He squirms deliciously against Tony’s hold.

“Ask me _nicely_.”

“Tony, please, please fuck me, I want you to come inside me, I want you to fill me up, please, I want to feel you-” Steve’s voice breaks off abruptly as Tony pushes in, and the slide is easy. Each ridge makes Steve hitch his hips the slightest bit, and he’s chanting “yes, yes, yeah,” under his breath, low and lovely and grateful.

“You’re so good,” Steve slurs, and Tony flushes hot. “God, you’re so fucking good, Tony, don’t stop, please don’t stop-”

“I’m gonna stuff you full,” Tony promises, and Steve groans and tries to push back against him.

“Put- on my chest, I want-”

“You want my suckers on your nipples again?”

Steve groans, and Tony tips him up so that the camera can see the fast-fading bruises marching all across his chest through the reflection in mirror. He reaches around and pinches one, revelling in the dazed, desperate look that Steve’s wearing. God, but he’s beautiful.

“Are you- God, are you _filming_?”

“You bet I am,” Tony says. He worms one tentacle up and flicks at one of Steve’s abused nipples with it. They’re puffy, pink and used. Tony wants to put his mouth on them. “Look at you.”

“Tony,” Steve moans, and Tony leans in and sucks a bruise onto his trapezius as he fits his tentacle over Steve’s chest, holding him up and suckering his nipples at the same time. “Oh, God, _yes_.”

“What is it about this that does it for you?” Tony asks, because he can never leave well enough alone.

“Everything,” Steve gasps. He squirms helplessly in Tony’s grip, eyes fluttering as he tries to meet Tony’s gaze in the mirror. A particularly vicious twist of his hectocotylus ensures that he’s not quite able to, his eyes squeezing shut in pleasure. “ _Fuck_. _Tony_.”

“Tell me,” Tony says. He slides his free hand over Steve’s flank and around, drags his short nails up over his abs. The sound Steve makes is delicious.

“Harder,” Steve tells him, and so Tony does it again, harder. He tightens his hold on Steve’s thighs and calves.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “God damn, you’re so good to me.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm,” Steve moans. He flexes his hips as much as he’s able, pushing back onto Tony’s hectocotylus. He opens his eyes, half-lidded and amatory, his gaze pinning Tony like an insect to corkboard. “You’re so good.”

Tony shudders, presses his nose to the soft place behind Steve’s ear and sucks a bruise there.

“Faster,” Steve tells him, then closes his eyes and groans in bliss when Tony does just that. “God, perfect. Come on. Come, Tony, I want-”

“You said you were gonna come again,” Tony reminds him, and Steve smiles: lazy and satiated.

“Almost definitely,” he promises. “Come on, handsome. Give it to me right.”

“Don’t you start with that,” Tony warns him, and Steve laughs. It’s low and throaty, and it makes his muscles clench in a way that makes Tony see stars. “ _Steve_.”

“ _You_ like this,” Steve accuses. “You like being able to touch me everywhere. Ten arms, all over me. Completely yours. I _love_ this. What were you so worked up for?”

“It’s weird,” Tony begins, but Steve just makes a humph-ing noise and lifts one hand in a breezy wave. The other he’s got clamped around the tentacle that’s wrapped up around his torso and over his chest, running his hand up and down it, over and over. Steve reaches back and fists a hand in Tony’s hair, leaning back onto Tony’s shoulder and letting out a throaty groan.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps. “I’m almost- fuck, _yes_ -”

“What do you need?”

“Touch-” Steve whines, his hips bucking. “Touch me. Touch me, please, Tony-”

Tony slides his hand down and cups Steve’s sac, pulling gently at the soft skin. Then he slides his hand down deeper, fingers pressing into Steve’s stretched out rim. The sound that Steve makes is obscene. It makes all the hair on Tony’s arms stand on end, a shiver of arousal running over his body. He pistons his hectocotylus harder and faster. He’s getting there. He can feel it, different than any other orgasm his body has ever experienced. It feels…he doesn’t know how to describe how it feels.

“Tony, Tony, Tony,” Steve is chanting, halfway between supplication and thanks. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open, eyelashes fluttering. “I need- please, I need-”

“What do you need?” Tony asks him. He sucks Steve’s earlobe into his mouth, teeth grazing the soft skin. “What do you need, baby?”

“Come,” he groans. “Please. You know-”

“Almost, gorgeous, I’m almost there.”

“Fuck,” Steve whines. “I don’t- I’m not gonna last much longer, and I want-”

“Clench up tight,” Tony tells him. He forgot he was still holding the phone, and he almost drops it into the tub as Steve does as he’s told. He tosses it onto Steve’s uniform pants and then uses his free hand to get a grip on Steve’s hair, pulling his head back onto Tony’s and baring his throat. He’s a long line of submission from cock to chin, overlapping bruises in perfect circles visible on the bits of thigh that peek out between Tony’s tentacles. His abs are straining, and he’s gasping for it, begging-

Tony can’t keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t need to: the sight of Steve wrapped up in him is burned on his retinas. He’s going to remember this in vivid colour for the rest of his life. His climax takes him in a slow surge, waves of it, much longer than a human orgasm. His whole body tightens up, muscles clenching, and he can feel himself coming: endlessly, pumping again and again and again inside Steve’s hot, tight body. Steve’s moaning for it, his hole clenching in tandem, but he finishes much earlier than Tony. He can’t stop, waves of it crashing over him, building in intensity until Tony’s sobbing with pleasure, his face buried into the back of Steve’s ear, mouthing blindly at the skin there. Steve’s speaking, but Tony can’t parse language, and they stay like that for what feels like forever: Steve, pliant and trembling in Tony’s arms, his body a hot coal in contrast to the tepid water lapping at their ribs.

Tony doesn’t black out, but he does go somewhere else for a while. He must, because he comes back into his body disoriented, vision blurred, ears ringing. He can feel Steve, sloppy wet and hot inside, and Tony moans helplessly and sways forward a little into Steve’s back.

“Tony,” Steve murmurs, and Tony blinks himself back into the world rapidly, eyes struggling to focus. Steve’s voice is shaky, slightly overwhelmed. “Tony, I…”

“Is it too late to call Stephen and tell him ‘never mind’?” Tony asks, and Steve barks out a startled laugh.

“That man knows far too much about our sex life already,” Steve complains, and Tony snorts and shakes his head, blinking the world into focus. Steve is utterly, truly filthy. He’s got come splattered on the bottom of his chin, over his chest, and also on the edge of the tub and onto the bath mat. He’s bruised everywhere, little magenta and violet circles from Tony’s mouth and suckers. There’s a handful of red scrapes from Tony’s nails across his chest and stomach. His lips are bitten red.

Tony moans helplessly into the back of Steve’s neck, then buries his head there to hide himself from the sight.

“You’re filthy,” he mumbles, and Steve chuckles lowly.

“Pot, kettle.”

Tony smiles against his skin.

“You done?” Steve asks.

“Can you take more?” Tony laughs, then near about swallows his tongue when Steve clenches down hard on his oversensitive ligula.

“Always,” he says, and Tony bites him in recompense. Kinky fucking bastard that he is, Steve only hums in pleasure. “You came for _ages_. I feel so full.”

“Have mercy,” Tony begs, and Steve laughs at him. With a soft sigh, Tony pulls his hectocotylus slowly, gently out of Steve’s body. Steve moans sweetly when he pulls out, arching his back. “Baby, come on.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Steve says, completely unconvincingly, and Tony huffs a resigned laugh. He uncoils himself from around Steve’s limbs, swishing his tentacles around in the water to wash away the tight, itchy sensation caused by Steve’s sweat.

Steve shuffles around awkwardly on his knees, then turns and winds his arms around Tony’s neck. He nudges their noses together, playful and utterly irresistible. “Put your hands on my stomach,” he tells him.

Tony furrows his brow, but does as he’s told. He spans Steve’s trim waist with his calloused workman’s hands, running his fingertips along the peaks and valleys of muscle.

“Feel distended?” Steve asks, arching a playful eyebrow, and Tony flushes. Hard. His fingertips dig into Steve’s skin, rigid enough that it would hurt the average person. Steve _does_ feel a little bloated. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush.”

“You are a menace, Steven,” Tony tells him. Then, belying his words, he leans in and kisses one corner of Steve’s unrepentant grin. “I love you more than all of the tentacles in the multiverse.”

“I love you,” Steve says, leaning in to press a warm, grinning kiss to Tony’s mouth, “more than freedom, and justice, and Americ-”

If he finishes the rest of his sentence, Tony doesn’t understand it through his spluttering. It’s child’s play to manipulate Steve under the water, pulling him flat and then collapsing on top of him for good measure. Water sloshes over the side of the tub as Steve rears up, roaring with outrage and laughter. His eyes are shining with mirth, muscles taut as they grapple, and Tony can’t stop laughing. He loses the fight quickly by virtue of his own helpless wheezing, the kind of laughter so deep and long that it makes his sides ache.

Steve pins him to the side of the tub, wet hair dripping into Tony’s face as he looms over him. His face is flushed. Happy. He’s everything Tony’s ever wanted.

“That’s better,” Steve pants. He leans down and takes Tony’s mouth in a kiss. There’s saltwater everywhere, dripping from the tip of his nose. It gets into Tony’s mouth as they kiss, open-mouthed and sloppy with laughter and heaving breaths. Steve pulls back and nudges their noses together. “There you are.”

“Sorry,” Tony murmurs, but Steve hushes him.

“I love you,” Steve says simply. “Someday you’ll figure it out, genius.”

“I love you,” Tony says. He sucks in a shaky breath. He feels, strangely, like crying. Thoughts he can’t voice buzz around his head like moths to a porch light. _I’m sorry I’m like this. I don’t understand why you put up with me. I don’t understand why you fell in love with me. I don’t know why you stay._ _I can’t ‘figure out’ something that’s inexplicable by rational means of thought._

Steve looks at him with a gentle kind of sadness, like he can read everything that Tony isn’t saying in his eyes. He tugs him close and presses a soft kiss to his brow. “I had a great time, Shellhead. I’d love to do something like it again, if that’s something you want. If that’s something we can do. Always ask me for what you want. Okay?”

“What if what I want’s not something you want?” Tony asks him.

“Then we talk it out,” Steve says, something between a laugh and a sigh escaping him. He pulls away and offers Tony a wink. “Not that we’ve found anything I don’t like yet. Maybe I like things that are too out there for you, huh? What then?”

Tony shakes his head. “No such thing,” he tells him. He means it, too. There is nothing he wouldn’t give Steve. He would bisect his own body and pull his living heart out of his chest if Steve asked him to. There is no future where Steve asks him for something he isn’t willing to give.

“Well then,” Steve tells him. He tips Tony’s face up so that their eyes lock. “Feeling’s mutual, hm?” He kisses Tony, chaste and warm. “Just talk to me, okay?”

“Okay,” Tony murmurs. He leans in and rests his face in the soft curve of Steve’s neck. His stomach grumbles loudly, and Steve laughs.

“Stay,” Steve tells him. “I’ll get us some food, and then we’ll clean up a bit. God forbid Stephen shows up and the bathroom looks like this.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Tony mutters. He can’t stop himself from saying it. The look Steve spares him as he climbs out of the tub, dripping wet, miles of pale skin like a Grecian statue-

“You say stuff like that,” Steve says, and Tony’s eyes snap guiltily up to his face, “and then you look at me like I’m a particularly juicy piece of meat at the butcher.”

“There are too many sexual puns I could make. I’m spoiled for choice,” Tony deadpans.

Steve shakes his head, grinning. “Tell me about your neuroscientist friend. Did you work in the octopus lab? Did they have names?”

Tony reels off some tentacle-filled college antics and explains the unique phenomenon that is an octopus’ distributed mind’s autonomous movement, all the while watching blatantly as Steve hops into the shower to rinse the salt water and bodily fluids off. He dries off with military proficiency, smiling softly at Tony when their eyes meet in the mirror. He’s in the middle of towelling his hair dry when a small frown breaks over his face. He pads over, naked and unabashed, and leans over to pick something up from the pile of clothes in the middle of the bathroom floor. A bright red blush steals over him, flushing him hairline to sternum, over the tips of his ears.

“What?” Tony asks, curious.

Wordlessly, Steve turns around, his phone held up in his hand. A grin breaks over Tony’s face.

“It’s still filming,” Steve says, mouth twitching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Aaaaand that’s a wrap, folks! (Pun maybe intended?) I hope you enjoyed this v p0rny tentacle fic. Now back to the serious plot-based WIPs…
> 
> Pls leave a comment if you enjoyed! I don’t write just straight filth v often (I think this is my second ever PWP type fic, although I didn’t tag it as such because it’s a little too plotty for that) so lmk what you thought. I really like the idea of continuing this series, so if that interests y'all maybe instead of me just pulling prompts off the kinkmeme and continuing in this vein, people can also comment w/ things they’d like to see Steve/Tony subjected to? This is a v fun stress reliever. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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